Dreaming again
by Zodidj
Summary: A Ranma/Fatal frame crossover, please Read and review, I would like to see what I need to do to improve Ukyou centered as she tries to survive the Manor of sleep, and rescue Ranma. Undergoing grammar updates, and new chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_Authors note: I don't own anything in here. Standard disclaimers ect._

_This has been updated for grammar so if you don't want to reread it, don't ;)_

_Suggestions/reviews welcome, even if you hate it._

_This is a R/U pairing. There is Violent Akane bashing here. __**Knight's of the abusive fiancée**__ take note of that._

_Special thanks to my editor without whom this would still be unreadable._

_3/29/12 updated for grammar corrections. _

_Night X : Dreaming Again_

Dreaming again, she looked at her grandfather's manor house and sighs. She is tired of this dream. Ukyou adjusts her kimono and wanders into the main hall. Her grandfather's estate always used to scare her when she was little, so it does not surprise her that she is afraid of it in her nightmares. There was always this feeling of unease when she was there, like there were spirits watching her. Her mother didn't like it much either. The Kuze Manor was always a place of dread for her family. Her mother often seemed so sad whenever her father was mentioned and always got ill when it was time to visit.

"Maybe it's Mom's fault, this uneasy feeling I have," she mutters. "Are her fears becoming mine?" she asks herself as she looks around the dream scape. A sad thought about missing her mother adds to the sad feelings she is already feeling for Ranma.

The walls were dirty in her dreams; old, like no one had lived there for centuries. The hallway in front of her always seemed dark and dirty as well, very different from the clean and spotless hall that she remembered of her childhood. A soft, bluish light makes the scene even weirder; but, as she has had this dream before and has grown accustom to it.

In the distance, that odd song can be heard. She moves through the manor, down the hall, past the central room and towards her grandfather's private shrine. Her dream follows this pattern, so she knows what is coming. Soon she will reach the door, and her grandfather will open the door, but it won't be him. Instead it will be some vile spirit in the shape of her grandfather, reaching out for her, strangling her. Soon she reaches the door, and again it slides open. Beyond the door this time, however, the haggard face of a young man looks to her, arms out.

"Help me!"

As she wakes, the one thought on her mind was of someone she can't hold the tears back for. "Why him? Why can you just stay dead…. Ranma…" she sobs.

Ranma was, as far as everyone knew, dead. He and Akane had run off together and, a few months later, Akane returned saying they were divorced and she was "sure" he was dead. This sounds simple, of course. Just saying he was dead and expecting everyone to accept it. The Amazons had already left Nerima. Ukyou had nothing to keep her there anymore. It took Ukyou another three weeks, until she learned of his death and she returned to find out more. No amount of pressure from her could convince Akane to tell her what happened. It took Ukyou a week of trying and all she got from Akane was silence. All the other woman would say is "I am sure he is dead. Positive." Nothing else was forthcoming

After trying to get information for two more weeks, she returned to her lonely apartment—away from Nerima, unable to fully grieve. No one knew where he was buried or even where he had been when he died. Akane was not telling. A week and a day later, Ukyou got news that the Amazons had returned seeking information from Akane. And that they were far less nice about it than she was. Now there were several deaths Ukyou had to deal with. Even though Akane was a rival and she hated her for not saying what happened, she was also still her friend. Many of the rest of the dead were as well.

She went to the shrine in her apartment and replaced the incense and the plate of Okonomiyaki. She brings her hands together and prays. "Ran-chan, I am sorry. I miss you". Her life was on hold. She had moved to another section of Tokyo and set up an apartment. She had some money but didn't feel like doing anything. So she existed for a time.

The dream started again. She could hear a banging of metal on metal off in the distance. Again she was at the door of her grandfather's estate and she was smoothing down a kimono, that was her mother's in life. 'I wish I had gotten to know her better,' she thinks as she looks down at the blue kimono with the large Saukra symbol on it. 'First father took away my womanhood, then Mom died. Now Ranma's gone. Who else is left… Why not me too?'

Outside the manor, the snow came down.

The dreams continue, still usually with her grandfather strangling her as the end point. Her days are unending, nothing really seems to happen to her. She really doesn't want to move much. Her friend, Konastu, would stop by and bring her groceries and sometimes even cook for her, but he doesn't get much in the way of a response. Nothing has changed for them. He still loves her. She still thinks of him as a friend and, oft times, an annoyance. But they are both older and, hopefully, wiser. She no longer beats on him for being pushy and he is no longer pushy. He also has a girlfriend now though she is still second in his heart.

Her days stretch on and her nights drag on through the same patterns. Until, one night, she dreamed again of Ranma calling out to her.

The snow came down, piling on the ground in front of her. Her kimono was the same as before. She still feels the cold, just like before, even though she's wearing a winter-weight kimono. This time she is in the forest, a bit back from the manor. There is a statue of Inari on either side of the path. Both are missing their heads, though they have the red scarves. The scarves seem to extend much farther down the statues, giving the appearance of bloody, headless foxes.

She walks between them and moves up the hill. Tonight, it is the body of her grandfather that lies at the door of the manor. 'That's a first' she thinks to herself. 'If he is out here, I wonder what's inside?' The doors seem the same, but there is a strange pattern carved into it. It's not her family's crest, or that of her grandfather's. She studies it a moment. The circle has two cars on it—one atop the other. [[Cars? Did you mean something else?]] 'I know this symbol, think.' She goes back in her mind, thinking through all of the symbols she has seen, until it dawns on her: Nodoka's sword. It's one of the three crests on her sword. So it's either Awa or Satomi since this is not her own family's branch crest. 'Well that's different. Why would that crest be here?' She thinks to herself.

She pushes on the door, surprised when it opens into a different room than she is expecting. This one is brightly light, though the lists [[did you mean lights?]] still seem to be bluish in nature, and there is a small gathering in the center of the room. She can see two figures in what appear to be female kimonos sitting in front of a man who has his back to her. The man she is sure she knows from his long pony-tail. They sit, with voices softly coming from the females in front of him but he does not appear to move. Ukyou walks forward, but no one pays her any attention. She steps into the center tatamati chamber and notices that they are gathered around what appears to be a human head. She looks down and examines it. Everything seems to move slowly in this dream and the figures still don't notice her. There is only that background murmuring and silence from the male—who has his face down and hidden. The head, so looks at looks vaguely like Akane's but it's odd, more different than she would expect.

She reaches down to pull the male figure's head up. As she touches him, the voices become understandable, clear, and she hears her own voice, and the voice of Nodoka, saying over and over again "See how your protection works? She is dead, and you're to blame!"

The voices repeat this. She pulls his head up and looks into the eyes of Ranma, sitting there in formal clothes, and with a weird blue tattoo on his neck. "It's not my fault, Ukyou, it's not," he sobs. She starts to try and pull him up, but at her feet, something weird happens. She feels the head move, and Akane's voice echoes in her mind. "Not your fault? I gave up everything because of you, and you are the only one to blame. Some man! Some protector.. Where were you Ranma,!"

Ukyou kicks the head away and pulls Ranma to his feet. Ranma follows blindly and, as they move from this room into another, his clothes shift to what he was normally wearing. Ukyou can see blue tattoos on his arm that run up to his neck. "Ranma, this is a dream," she says to him.

"Find me, Ukyou, and find me fast. I am always asleep and I am starting to lose. SHE keeps appearing and every time she catches me, I get worse." The room grows darker, as he is talking.

"Where can I look for you, do you have anything?"

"Find Miku, Miku Hinasaki. She can help you"

The darkness becomes palatable and Ranma looks around, spooked. "She's coming! Go! I will lead her away."

"Who is coming, Ranma?" As these words leave Ukyou's lips, she sees a figure of a woman, undressed and covered in tattoos, enter the room. She is tall, and exudes power.

"RUN!" Ranma shouts.

Panicked, Ukyo runs. As she runs, sees Ranma dodging the figure that keeps trying to reach out for him. Ukyou reaches door to the outside and plunges through it. She awakes in a cold sweat.

"He's alive? Or a ghost, or… What's going on…" She sits up, looks over to the door of her room, and notices the head of Akane looking up at her. "You're Next!"

Ukyou screams.

_And Wakes up again._

Ukyou moves through the streets. This is the first time she has been out of her apartment in over a month. She travels because she found the number of Miku, the person whom Ranma said would help in her dream. She called Miku, and after a very quick conversation, agreed to meet with Ukyou. The only troubling part was while she said she could help, Miku seemed to think that this had all been dealt with before, and was concerned that it was starting again. She traveled into another district in Tokyo and approached a small publishing house, where Miku said to meet her.

She entered the office, and asked the receptionist if she could speak to Miku

"Miku? Let me call down to the photography department" The young receptionist sits at a deck with a nameplate of "Mio". She is younger than Ukyou, and is very pretty, but there is something odd about her eyes. She gets off the phone. "You are Ukyou right? Miku will be here in a moment along with my uncle. Rei wanted to meet you as well but, she is out on assignment at present. Please have a seat" Ukyou looks at the girl and sighs, and sits, waiting.

In a few moments, a young woman and a man show up, from downstairs. There is something of dread in the way they look at Ukyou, but also great sympathy. The girl speaks first.

"Ukyou, I am Miku. Before we go any farther I have to know: do you have any tattoos that suddenly appeared on your body?"

Ukyou shakes her head, "Not on me, no, but in my dream when I saw Ranma, his arm was covered in a blue tattoo."

"Okay. Well, then, it's only on his arm so far. Still, we have to hurry if we are going to save him. Next question, Did he or you in your dream have an old Camera?"

"Uhmm, no not that I can tell."

Miku sighed. "The camera has to be somewhere, and it's your only weapon that works against them. Ever. Ken, can you bring her the Camera"

"Are you sure?" Kei asks. "We have that locked up."

"Yes, it's started again, and she needs to have it if she is going to fight and save her friend"

"But Miku, we haven't yet resolved that Ranma IS alive and not some form of ghost."

"Either way, she is drawn in and the least we can do is help her survive."

The man gets up and walks upstairs leaving the three alone. Mio seems uncomfortable during this discussion of the camera, as does everyone else.

Okay, Ukyou, I have a story to tell you. First off, everyone who works at our company understands what you're going through. We all went through it and survived, barely. However, the vast majority of those who enter into the dream manor die there. There is a woman covered in tattoos that slowly encompass you. It's important to know what happened with us, so you can survive the experience. We can't go in for you, so learn from our experiences and we will help in any way we can."

Around this time the man returned with an old camera that looked completely broken. It had weird symbols around the edges and around the lens. Ken carefully carried it and placed it on the desk in front of Mio, who pulled back from it.

This is the camera. I want you to take it with you for now. Listen to our story and try to learn from it."

For the next two hours Miku and Kei talked to Ukyou, telling everything they could remember about the Manor of Sleep. The knowledge of what Ranma and she was going through horrified her. Kei did not think that much of the knowledge was going to be of help, but maybe it would make details of this somewhat easier. They listened to Ukyou and after discussing this with her more they decided that she was not that far into the dream yet, although it was a bad sign that she had seen the woman they called Reika.

" If you have seen Reika, then you're locked into this and you have to force her back to sleep. To free yourself and Ranma," Mika said. "What we will do is see if we can find your Ranma in a hospital or the like. He said he was always sleeping; maybe he is in a coma somewhere. We had one we met like that." Ukyou just nods at this point. She is terrified now of what is to come, but she will willingly give up her soul for him.

Ukyou, how do you feel about moving in for the time being with Rei and me? Rei suggested it, so we can try and help you in this as much as possible"

Again she just nods blankly, agreeing to the strange request. At least she won't be alone in this. They have been through it. Maybe they will help her survive it.

By the end of the day, she is set into a new room down the hall from hostesses Rei, and Miku. Both are extremely nice to the younger girl, and make every effort to relay their experiences so that Ukyou has at least some idea what to expect.

These were dreams to them as well, so many of the memories are spotty, at best—other than Miku's memories of her first encounter with the camera, of course. She settles into the room that used to be Rei's fiancé's room and finally, late that night, sleeps again. She was once more being pulled into her own personal hell.

_Night One : Joining_

The snow falls outside the manor again.

She is not being touched by it, of course. It is just the unending cold. Today she wears no kimono. Instead, she wears her normal clothing. She feels more comfortable dressed so. She is, however, sure that her comfort is not what anyone here has in mind. The path is still in front of her. She seems farther from the manor than before. Farther down the path, in the woods, more of the strange Inari statues are here—also without their heads. She walks towards the manor. The snow continues to fall silently as she steps closer to the door.

The doors to the manor are almost the same as before. A little brighter this time ,and instead of the crude carving of the crest, a refined crest is on the door. It is a broad circle with two horizontal lines on it. Ukyou is sure that it's from the main family of the Saotome clan, the Satomi branch. She had drawn the symbol out for Miku and she has pulled up the information on the clan. Ranma was a part of a proud family of Samurai, one of the oldest there were, dating back to the 1200s. It was funny that no one put that together before. But here, in the world of ghosts, they remember things like Clan and Family. Maybe this was the section she could find Ranma in.

She learned from the others that, eventually, she would have to go all of the way in. There was no way to avoid it. However, the first thing Miku and Rei wanted to see if Ukyou could find Ranma in the dream, to give him advice to NOT to go father in. If they could keep him out of her, Reika's grasp, he could survive longer. Kei said he had to survive and run from things for quite a while before he would be able to get and understand the camera. They also thought that once she found the camera in the dream, she needed to get it to Ranmadelete comma so that he could find it as well. Unless he knew what it was it was, it was doubtful that he would even bother picking it up if he found it.

She looks again at the doors that block her path into the manor. From within she can, faintly, hear the sounds of someone playing a Biwa softly in the distance. She reaches out and slowly pushes on the doors. Inside the lights are bright and she can hear the Biwa playing, louder now, coming down the hallway into what she remembers as the main hall. She steps into the entrance way and takes about three steps towards the hallway when she feels this cold pressure from above. She looks up and sees the outline of a man, in traditional nobleman's clothes, looking down on her from a catwalk above the entrance. He has a spear in one hand. He also looks slightly inhuman and seems to be covered in small cuts. He stares at her a moment and then just fades away before her eyes. The Biwa playing hits a sour note when he vanishes, but starts back up again after a second of silence. 'I hope they are right about me finding the camera here. I am not sure my spatula is going to cut it against ghosts,' she thinks to herself as she continues down the hallway. She passes the doors that are on either side of her, but there are no lights on in those rooms and she is still being drawn down the main hall to the center of this part of manor. Farther down stood the paper doors that would give her entrance into the main hall. She can see figures inside, and the shadow against the paper wall of a figure playing a Biwa. She reached out and touching the door, and started to open it.

The lights vanished as she touched the door and the figures were gone. As she opened the door, she saw the bodies of many, many men and women strewn about the main hall. In the shadowy light from the hall behind her, she could see that each body was covered in cuts and most had parts of their faces removed. Ukyou sucked in her breath and if she had been in her body rather than this dream, she would have vomited. The smell was intense and, as she looked around, she saw more bodies that were missing eyes. Some bodies were simply missing their heads. She looked around in growing horror, and noticed that one pair of eyes, from a headless corpse, was following her movement. When the eyes blinked, she started screaming.

At her scream, the room's lights turned back on and all of the bodies disappeared. It was now an empty main hall, ornate in a style that would have been used centuries ago. There is a center seating area for the master of the house, on which lies a scroll case, and spots for others around the hall. Two statues of samurai guards stand motionless, silent forms of armor watching the hall. In front of the audience chair, there is a small table. She notices, and feels drawn to, the ornately designed silver mirror that rests upon it. She learned from Miku to always pick anything up that she was drawn to, that it would be of use to her later in the dream. She looked in the mirror and, at first, saw her own reflection. Then she saw Ranma lying unconscious in the mirror. His face was blueish and it looked like he was being strangled. His body was limp and appeared to have been dropped to the ground. Then she saw the mace—big and metal with a large spike on the end—as it crashed down on his head over and over again. She saw the blood spreading on the ground. His face was not even recognizable and still he did not move. The bashing stopped, and he lay there, on cement. Written beside him, in paint, were the kanji for Taian Yeushou and the numbers 8765-2. The image faded then and she put it in her bandolier.

She felt a sense of being drawn, so she stepped back into the hallway and returned to the two doors she passed before. In the distant entryway, she sees something flickering that she is sure was not there before. She approaches it and sees a small pile of things lying there. There is a flashlight, some papers, and the camera that her new friends described to her.

'I guess it's really beginning then,' she thinks to herself. She picks everything up, and starts to read the first paper when a dark feeling in her gut grips her and she hears the wood creak and groan around her. Turning to look behind her, she sees a pale man in traditional peasant garb and carrying some sort of knife moving towards her. His face has numerous cuts on it and he is moving very slowly. Ukyou's stomach twists, her fear overpowering. This is very unlike the other "ghosts" she has encountered. It must be different on grounds like this. She grabs her spatula out of reflex and faces off against the spirit. He reaches out for her. She attempts to bash him with her spatula but it passes right through him. His cold fingers grab her arm as it passed through his body and she feels the cold rush into her, slowing her down. As he holds her, he stabs her with his knife, and she screams again. She manages to push him back with her hands, taking more damage, and remembers that the camera is her only hope here. She raises it and watches as symbols flash inside of the viewfinder. She can see him differently through the viewfinder. He is more detailed and far more terrifying. Suddenly, the light in her viewfinder turns red and, just as Miku instructed her, she took the shot. The ghost screams and falls to the ground, dissipating. Her camera flashes a bit as it absorbs the energy of the spirit.

Ukyou feels cold. The spirit had hurt her. On the floor where the spirit was defeated, another twinkling light appears. She turns and picks it up. Lying there are two bottles of some herbs. She puts them in her pack and looks around a bit more. She starts to move back to the doors as the room does dark, and she feels an even greater presence than before. She looks up at the end of the hallway. There is the dark woman again. She moves towards Ukyou with arms outstretched, and Ukyou does what she was told to do, run fast to where she entered, to try and escape the dream. She runs and the Blue woman follows, teleporting to be much closer to her When Ukyou reaches the door, she jumps through just as the woman was about to reach her.

She wakes in Yuu's room. She is cold but no pain, and she does not see any tattoos on her. So far she has been lucky. She does not know how long that will last. She gets up, walks downstairs, and tells everything to Miku. "I will research that name and those numbers," Miku tells her. Maybe they will give us a clue about where he is."

Rei looks at her and laughs. "You're always researching clues, Miku."

Ukyou feels a little better, in this company. At least she has some help.

Night two, hour one: Red

She appears again in the woods, but this time she cannot even see the manor. The forest bears down around her. She is dressed as she usually is with the Camera Obscura as her only apparent weapon. Looking around, she sees the path go in several directions. In the center of the juncture is a statue of a man in samurai armor. He is also missing his head. The statue is old, and slowly being covered by snow. Since she can't tell which way she is supposed to go, she picks a direction on the path and starts walking. She walks down this path for a bit and realizes that this is not the same path. The statues here are of the Twin Dosijin's and their all of faces have been rubbed off.

She walks up the path and under a gateway to see that she is at the top of a hill looking down on a village in the distance. Far in the distance she hears a crash as if something collapsed. She starts hurrying down the hill. As she rounds the bend into what would be the village itself, the Camera starts to jerk a bit. She holds up the camera to her eye and scans the area. The viewfinder turns blue when she looks at a dilapidated house and the door that is missing from it. She takes a picture and in the viewfinder she sees the image of a ghost that is reaching out to grab Ranma and Ranma trying to jump back is seen. She looks around suddenly.

'Ranma was here too' she thinks.

She starts trying to find more clues of his presence. As she wanders around in exploration, she walks up to a house at the end of the road. Next to the house is a well. She examines the well and finds yet another herbal bottle. Following her instincts, Ukyou goes around to the back of the house. In back is a small series of grave stones. There is a light inside of the house visible through the window. As she examines the window her camera jumps again, and she slowly pulls the viewfinder up to her eyes. In it she sees the face of a boy, who is looking back at her. Pulling the camera away, she sees that he is still there, He appears to be speaking to her but she can't hear him. She takes his picture and leaves the area.

Ukyou wanders back down the road. She comes to a branch to the left and kind of a jag to the right. Silence reigns here but at least it's not snowing. She looks both ways and decides to go right, down a path that heads between buildings. On her right is a short stairway to a door that hangs slightly open. She walks up the stairs and enters the building.

As she enters, on her left is a door while on her right is a small room. Further along on the right appears to be a stairway leading up. Also at the foot of the stairs stands what appears to be a girl, in a kimono, who looks at Ukyou and smiles. She is an extremely creepy young girl.

" Have you come to play with the other one?" the little girl asks.

"The other one?" Ukyou wanted to jump, thinking it was Ranma.

Sure," the creepy little girl said. "They are in MY room, playing with my sister. Follow me." She led Ukyou into the room in front of her and out a door in the back. That room had a weird projector in it, pointing at a white dirty wall. They passed into a hallway and, on the left, was another door even more ornate. The girl opened the door and led Ukyou inside. Inside she saw another girl who looked Identical to the first one, who seemed to be fighting with a very familiar petite red headed girl.

Wait!" yelled Ranko. "Don't let her close that door!" Ukyou turned and realized she had NO chance of reaching the door before the first girl slowly closed it. She opted to try throwing one of her spatula daggers instead, lodging it into the door jam and blocking the door being closed.

The first girl looks angry suddenly. "That was not nice," she grumbled. "You need to play fair," while reaching for Ukyou.

Ukyou felt the same sickness in her stomach. Fear gripped her, but she raised her camera. The girl got close and the image turned red, so she took the picture. The girl screamed and faded for a second. The other girl stopped her assault of Ranko and turned towards Ukyou "Will you play with me?" she asked.

Ranko grabbed the second girl and threw her into the wall. She then jumped on top of her and started pounding her with the chestnuts roasting attack. "If that camera does anything, take a picture of her now!" she yelled.

Ukyou started to try and capture the assault in the viewfinder. The first girl suddenly popped in front of her, grabbing at her. As a reflex she got another picture of the first girl dealing even more damage. She faded back again. Ukyou managed to line up on the second girl, and said, "Okay. Ready." When Ranko jumped off, Ukyou pressed the shutter. When she did, one of the lenses that was attached to the camera jumped into place and a massive blast came out of it. The second girl screamed and faded from view. As Ukyou was lowering the camera, she saw Ranko's foot fly just past her head. Ukyou dodged, rolling to the left, and witnessed as Ranko kicked the first girl over and over again until she fell to the ground and faded from view. Ranko took a deep breath.

What the hell are you doing here?" Ranko asked.

"Looking to rescue you, Ranma."

"Sorry, but I am not Ranma. I am looking for that baka to try and get him out of here. I am Ranko."

Ukyou was amazed. She had seen them separated once before. That Ranko was homicidal, or nymphomaniac, or something, but not like this one. This one seemed like, well, Ranma, more or less.

What's going on, Ranko?" Ukyou asked. "Why are you separate and how can you hit them and not be, well, killed?"

Because, technically, I AM a ghost," Ranko informed her. "The springs remember? I am the spirit of the girl who drowned. But not all ghosts are hateful and possessed by hell spirits, like this wacko. This woman is INSANE even by our standards. I can hit them, and her, but Ranma can't. We got separated when he was touched the first time. My presence in him stopped the first formation of his tattoos but she ejected me from him as soon as she figured that out."

Ukyou was stunned. Here was an unexpected benefit of the curse.

We got to find that baka because if HE dies, I am stuck here, forever. I SO do not want to be stuck in this mad woman's version of wonderland."

Ukyou nodded and looked finally around the room they were in. It's a red room with dolls all around the edges. Two of the dolls that are human-sized and look very similar to the two girls that Ukyou and Ranko just fought. There is an open elevator behind the two dolls.

"Hey Ukyou," Ranko began, "I guess you REALLY love my baka half, don't you?"

Ukyou blushes and doesn't say anything at all.))

"It's okay," Ranko continues. "I think even he will be able to tell if you're really just here to save his sorry hide. You haven't been touched have you?" she asked.

"One of the men got a hold of me," she admits.

"No," Ranko said. "Her. She hasn't gotten a hold of you yet, has she?"

"No, I have been lucky."

" Well we better keep it that way, then. No need for both of us dieing here." Ranko looked down "I mean, we should get it through her head that she needs to go back to sleep."

For the first time, Ukyou noticed the blue tattoo that was on the back of Ranko's arm.

Suddenly the elevator started glowing a soft blue, and Ukyou was drawn to it.

Ranko noticed "Hey, keep looking for us. And I will try and find you again"

Ukyou walked into the blue light while stepping into the elevator, and the world went white. She then woke. Still no pain. Still no tattoo. With a very heavy heart, she stood up to go talk to Miku.

_Day two, morning._

Ukyou walked down the stairs and looked around the living room. Miku was in the kitchen, standing and looking into the living room. She had a stack of papers and a cup of coffee in front of her. She looks up at Ukyou

"Good morning," Miku begins. "About that information you were looking for. I may have found something."

"Oh Good morning," Ukyou returns. "What did you find out?"

Miku took another sip of her coffee. "Taian Yeushou is a large scale road work company. They operate all over Japan. They have projects running all over. 8765-2 is a project reference number. It looks like there was a construction project going on near the Sugisawa Village in the Aomori Prefecture. That project stopped about two weeks ago due to a police investigation of a 'attempted murder' that took place there. Apparently, the wife of one of the construction workers came onto the site to bring him lunch. The rest of the account is kind of unbelievable."

"Well tell me anyway, I tend to believe a lot of unbelievable things. "

She takes a sip of her tea "The wife brought her husband lunch, and according to the rest of the accounts, he did not like it enough for her taste. There are some accounts that he was ill. Others say that he started choking."

"If that was Akane's cooking I can see that."

Miku just looks at her a second. "Anyway, she apparently got angry and started beating him up. Most folks said this was a usual occurrence, and it wasn't something to be concerned about until she picked up a jackhammer and started using it on her husband's head. All of the accounts confirm this. She jack hammered his head into the pavement. The foreman called the police and several of the other works tried to help him or restrain her, the accounts are confused here. She apparently knocked them over, and down and generally beat them up as well. She fled the scene. The police report states the victim survived, account lists a Tendo Daisuke, not a Ranma."

"Daisuke was one of his closest friends. He must have taken the name and Akane's last name to help him hide."

"That makes a kind of sense. The police report shows that the victim was sent to Citizens Hospital in Aomori. The case is still listed as an "attempted murder" so unless there is a clerical error, the victim is still alive."

Ukyou thought about all of this and came to a decision. "I need to go there for myself, and see if it is Ranma."

Miku nodded "I will get Kei and we will go. It's in northern Japan,((delete comma)) and quite a distance from here. It IS worth noting that Rei and I went to that area once too, to photograph the house that she first saw Yuu's ghost in. So if Ranma was near that house maybe that's why he is having these problems."

Miku turns and pours Ukyou a cup of coffee. Ukyou takes a sip and watches Miku make her call. She thinks back about her last night's dream and, just as she did before, writes down everything she can remember. She finishes her coffee, and heads into the shower.

In her shower, she lets her mind go a second. He was really gone. He went with her even though he KNEW that she was going to abuse him. 'Why could he not see how evil she was? Why could he not see how much I loved him?' Ukyou's thoughts descend farther and farther down the spiral as she cries in the shower. The hot water turns cold as she stays in the shower. And eventually she realizes that she is ice cold. She gets out and dries off and starts to head back down the hall to meet with Miku. She feels an even colder presence coming from the spare room.

As she walks past the spare room door, She sees a dark figure standing there It is small, wearing a dress, and has no head. The shadowy figure is holding a round shape under one arm.

Ukyou staggers back against the wall as the figure fades away.

Shaking she returns to her room, waiting in silence until a knock on her door told her that Kei had arrived and they were ready to go.

Ukyou sat in Kei's car, more or less silent. After a little bit, Miku finally draws her out enough to relay what was in last night's dream. Then followed a long conversation about Ranma's curse and some philosophical back and forth about the nature of his cursed form being a ghost versus the type of ghosts Miku is used to dealing with. It's a fairly animated discussion between Kei and Miku on this that gradually draws Ukyou in, and makes her feel less despondent. They continue the drive and eventually stop for the night. Miku and Ukyou get one room, and Kei gets another.

_Night Two: Red Ropes_

Ukyou dreams.

She finds herself lying down on the floor of a room that she is unfamiliar with. Softlyin the distance, she hears that song again. Miku had told her that the song was a nursery rhyme and that it was used to remind everyone how to deal with the Tattooed maiden, Reika. The song becomes slightly more pronounced as Ukyou stands up and looks around. She is in a room with many cabinets and boxes in it. She walks around to the left of the room and she sees a downward stairway. She walks down the stairs and enters into a multi-room area common in Japanese traditional houses. There is a room, enclosed in rice paper walls, to her right, and a hallway to the left. She feels pulled to the hallway and at the end of the hallway she sees a young girl, in a shrine maiden outfit, standing at the end of the hall. She turns and walks away, beyond sight. Ukyou comes up to the hallway and turns to the right. A few feet ahead of her stands the girl again, in the intersection of a T. She is pointing down one of the paths. She then disappears.

Ukyou walks down this path and directly around a corner, into a door, that is covered with paper barriers. She opens the door and steps in. She is in a hallway that has flags hanging from the ceiling. Ukyou walks down the hallway. There is no wind that she can detect yet all of the flags are slowly moving as if they are being disturbed by a slight breeze. She comes to another door and enters into. On her left is a stairway going down. On her right is a lighted window with a figure sitting beside it and playing a biwa. Music plays slowly, in traditional sounds of sorrow. Before her is a banister looking down into another room. Around the right is a pathway that goes into another room. On her left is a paper stand, for decoration. At the top of the stairs she sees the little girl again, walking down them. Ukyou starts to follow her. They go down the stairs and past a grandfather clock into a room with a fireplace, heading toward a doorway in the far right end.

She enters into another hallway that also has T intersection as well as a room with a mirror. She follows the figure to the left and down a hallway with a bunch of ropes to a door on the left. Here she sees a room with a huge hole in the door. To the left is a foyer with a door outlined in a reddish glow. On the far side of the room Ukyou sees the figure again, standing in front of a mask that hangs on a semi-hidden door. Ukyou walks up to the mask and the figure disappears once more. Ukyou pulls the mask down, and opens the door. It enters into a smaller hallway that is cramped, and tight. Through the tight space she goes, almost tripping a few times, until she reaches a mini-door that opens into a room with a large cage inside of it. Inside the cage is a bound figure, hidden under a cloak. Ukyou enters the cage. It is set up like a sitting room with resting places, a book shelf, and many small knickknacks inside. She approaches the figure and it starts struggling.

"Mmmpphhh!"

Ukyou decides to take the chance, and start untying the ropes so that the blanket came come off. Under the blanket is the familiar red hair of Ranko, Her body is tied under the blanket as well so more ropes need to come off, and her gag comes out.

"Thank you thank you thank you" starts Ranko, jumping up and hugging Ukyou. "That TWIT got me to come down here and I got trapped by Miss Rope Fetish."

"What twit? The little girl?"

"No, I mean Akane. I followed HER and she led me right into the Rope Maiden."

"Oh. A little girl led me here. I guess to help you get free."

"That must be one of the Pacifiers. I have seen a few of them, but only one of them actually is helpful. The others are a pain in the foot."

Ukyou wonders at her turn of phrase.

"I mean seriously. The last one kept trying to spike my foot to the ground." Ranko grimaced.

Ukyou thought about this. She had been led to here to free Ranko. Whoever the helper is, she is unable to directly interfere other than by leading someone here to free Ranko.

"Well, at least she led me here. Right?"

"Yeah and I'll kick Akane's rear next time I run into her. I THOUGHT she was taking me to Ranma. Even here she is a bitch."

Ranko is really agitated about all of this. "Matter of fact, you're here, you have the camera, let's go kick that Rope Maiden into next week!"

Ukyou looks blankly as Ranko pushes her out of the cage and to another door. She wonders to herself if Ranko was helping her or hindering her today. They enter a room with a huge center wheel to it. There are ropes all around it

"Come out Kyrie, I wanna Re-match!" Yells Ranko.

Ukyou feels a tremendous cold presence that's far larger than anything she felt before. A woman materializes with ropes hanging off of her hands, feet and one around her neck. Her robes are that of a shrine maiden. She hovers over the ground and starts to move towards Ukyou. Ukyou is frozen in fear of this monster. Kyrie moves closer and closer.

"Oh no you don't!" Ranko exclaims as she jumps up and kicks Kyrie in the side of the head. "Come on, Ukyou, start killing her off," she finishes, as she almost knocks Kyrie over.

Ukyou pulls up her camera and she notices another bar inside the first. If she holds the shutter down, that bar gets brighter and brighter. She lines up a shot on Kyrie and waits for a clean one. A clean shot and not much happens. Ranko keeps fighting her. Every once in a while a rope would wrap around a body part. Ukyou realizes through trial and error that if she gets a "red" shot on Kyrie, the bonds gathering around Ranko loosen. This fight seems to last forever, but Ukyou also learns that she has a gauge at the top that can read what must be spiritual energy. It's deleting over time in the fight. Eventually she gets a red shot, followed by 4 linked shots, and Kyrie goes down.

"Man, that was tough. She is a real pain," Ranko sighs as she momentarily sits on the altar. "I have been trying to get rid of her since I got here."))

Ukyou is exhausted as well. "I need to rest. This sleep is wearing me out," she groans.

"Ah well. You come any closer to finding us?" Ranko asks.

Ukyou nods "We think we are on the way to where you are now. We were taking a rest."

"Some rest, eh?" Ranko chuckles.

"Well, at least I like the company now," Ukyou says with a small laugh.

"Yeah." The two girls stand silent for a bit.

"Well, it's time to get you out of here. Let's go." Ranko leads her back to the room with the reddish door. When they get there, Ukyou notices that its color has gone blue now.

"Take that door, you will wake up again. With any luck I will keep seeing you when you come here," Ranko smiles a moment. "Take care and find us soon".

Ukyou walks through the door and wakes up. She is lying in her bed back at Rei's Stretching, she swings her legs out from the side of the bed. A figure is suddenly standing in front of her

"Not even in death will I let you have him, you whore!" yells the head of Akane. Blood is pouring from her mouth, and eyes.

Ukyou screams at the sudden appearance, waking up this time in bed with Miku. She is cold and sweating. Miku wakes up and immediately starts asking Ukyou to relay her dream.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2 official_

_Day three, morning._

They finish the drive to the hospital, Miku, Ukyou and Kei. In stark contrast to what they are doing, its a really nice day outside. As they approach the front desk, a nurse smiles "how can I help you today" she ask brightly.

"We are looking for a patient who may be here" replies Mio, "his name is Tendo Daisuke and he should have been brought in from the general hospital about a month ago."

"well let me check the records." the young nurse start poking at her computer, "ahh here he is, on the second floor in room 13" The nurse smiles again at Kei mostly. "if there is anything else I can do for you please let me know" This was said more or less point blank at Kei. As they walk off, Miku looked at Ukyou and sniggered "well at least we know who would go looking for Kei-kun in dream" Kei just looked at her and glared.

They got to the door, and Ukyou waited feeling no small amount of fear. If she opened this door, would she find Ranma, or would this be a dead end? 'Can I really face him, hurt and out like this?', Ukyou thought to herself. 'will this help me in freeing him or hinder me? Is there any hope even'. Her thought grow darker and darker, until Miku puts her hand on Ukyou's shoulder "its ok, go see if its him. If it is, we at least know for sure that we can at least try to help him" Ukyou nodded, and finally noticed that she had been crying again, silently 'I am sorry, this appears to be a bad habit of mine" as she wipes away the wetness form her eyes. Miku sighs "its ok, really. You should have seen Rei when she was mourning. It took me months to keep the house in breakables" Something in Miku's eyes said she was exaggerating but Ukyou still felt better about it. She slowly pushed on the door, and entered the room.

Laying on the bed was what she hoped to find and feared to find at the same time. His braid had been cut off, and he was pail, with a tube in his mouth and many machines around him, but there was no mistaking it. Ranma, the one person she ever really loved, lay on that hospital bed, unmoving. She staggered a bit as a wave of too many emotions to describe hit her all at once. 'he is alive' was really the only coherent thought she had at present. 'even that bitch could not kill him'. Also inside she felt this despair, knowing that another bitch had taken him into her world. One that consumed everything in her path. "I will save you" she said quietly to herself, "I owe you that." Tears again started to fall from her as Miku placed her hand on Ukyou's back, giving her comfort as she faced her fears and hopes all at once.

They decide to stay in this area, and call Rei to let her know. Rei knows a place that they can rent for while, from the last time they visited here, and says she is coming up, will close shop for the duration. Several hours later, Rei and Mio drive up to the hostel that they were going to stay at, and everyone separates into different rooms. Miku is still staying with Ukyou, , and they talk more. When they get together with everyone for food, she finally realizes whats wrong with Mio's eyes, they are totally white. She seems to be able to see fine, but her eyes. It frightens Ukyou to some extent. Miku told her that Mio was like her, a two timer as they called it. 'That must have been part of the cost of her survival. I hope nothing happens to me like that' Mio notices Ukyou looking at her and smiles. "Don't worry, you don't have a sister." the others all look at her with sad expression's on their faces. Some things, Ukyou realizes, are still kept to themselves. "maybe only she can tell me about her experiences' The group eats in silence and then goes to bed.

_Night X03 : Red and Ukyou finding masks and nurses_

The First things Ukyou sees is a great staircase, leading up to a closed gate. Then she noticed the color, a yellowish tinge to the air. 'Another new location? I don't remember Miku describing this one" She finds that she is in some sort of front desk area, with that wide staircase, in front of her, and a desk area with a phone to her left. This is the first dream that she has not felt cold in. 'Well, I guess I should look around' behind her is a set of double doors, a bench and some pictures laying on a bookshelf. She see's a glowing flash of light on the shelf as well, and another flash by the end on the floor. She starts to walk the end table, and then stops. There is something weird about her movements. Her walking seemed smoother, but it was like she had difficulty moving her torso around. She experimented with this a bit and felt it was like her body was in a cast, sort of and parts of her torso just would not bend. 'well this is odd' She think, "this place must either be new, or none of them ever came here. They would have told me for sure about having problems moving.'

She continues to move towards the bookshelf when the phone starts ringing behind her. She turns automatically, and goes to pick the phone up. A loud crackly sound emanated from the phone, but also from every point around her more or less at the same time. _"Dance... The gate.. Six are one"_ comes this inhuman voice, the pulls the phone away from here ear, only to hear weird music over the intercom, and weird voice just like the one on the phone "_Lights out in 10 minutes, Lights out in 10 minutes_". A Dark Figure walks across the area, behind the closed gate. Ukyou cannot make out anything other than the vague impression that it seems to be female, and its not Reika. "Hey is anyone there" she hears coming from the phone. Ranko's voice is heard and she pulls it up immediately.

"Ranko, is that you?"

"yeah, and I am trapped in a room. I HATE this. If you find what looks like a display room, unlock the door." comes Ranko's voice.

Ukyou does know that this is easier to deal with when they are together "of course, have you seen Him?"

"yeah once, followed him here, so he is around here somewhere. By the way, this does not appear to be attached to the other area. It was like he was leading me through nothingness, to this version of a looney bin. I have not seen the blue bitch once, since getting here. I have seen some other chick though, and man she needs to get a better set of make up. Its like her face is twisted, or she ate Akane's cooking or something. Feels like I have been here for a few days, so I think this is something different. Maybe we can get a reprieve from getting new tat's if we are here." Ranko seemed like she was rambling, so she may have been locked up for some time in that room, Ukyou thought.

"Ok, I will come look for you. Any clues to where you are?"

"not really, lots of masks on the walls and I am on the first floor, I think. In these stupid places I could be on the 9th floor for all I know, and I don't think it has a 9th floor."

"Ok I will get started looking. And Ranko.."

"yeah?"

Thanks. I don't know what I really would do here, with yah."

"no problem, just lets get me outta here and find Baka, and get".

Ukyou hangs up the phone, and goes back over to the book shelf. On the shelf are some pictures, and on the floor is another one of those warming fluid bottles, that taste like bad sake. The pictures show the faces of girls, standing with nurses. Different names are written on each one. She notices a few are actually legible, Ruka , Madoka and Misaki. She puts the pictures in her pockets, and starts to see if she can find Ranko.

She walks down a hallway behind where the entryway was. The walls are torn and faded wallpaper, and she see's plaques with many Oni masks on them. "well those are creepy" she says more or less to herself. As she walks down the hallway, she sees that it turns a corner but there is a mirror, full length and very ornate. Its also smudged in places, and rotting. She looks at herself in the mirror, and notices that she look tired. She sees lines on her face that she never used to see. In some ways she is starting to look like the residents in these dreams, haggard, and wrung out. Her clothes are starting to tear in places, even her well cared for spatula is starting to look unkempt, no longer the gleaming tool it once was. While she looks at herself, and starts to deepen into her depression, a hand reaches up from the floor and grabs her leg. She tries to jump back and falls down. The Hand will not let go, and the cold from it is seeping into her leg. struggling against it, she kicks it off of her and gets up moving rapidly down the hallway. She stops to get her breath, and looks around. The hand is gone, and she is standing in front of a door, with a smoked glass window inside of it. There is a sign there saying "ASOU MUSEUM". Ukyou see's some sort of shape moving around in the room, darkened by the glass. She also hears something breaking, and muffled angry tones inside. 'She said something about displays, but this could also be a bad idea, the wrong room." with no small amount of trepidation, she grabs the door nob and turns it with an audible click. The door is flung open by something on the other side, and she see's a fist traveling right towards her face, she pulls back, expecting the fist to land, when she hears a "Ukyou?". Opening her eyes, she see's a lock of red hair, and Ranko standing there in front of her. "GREAT!, you found me" Ukyou just stands there trying to catch her breath. This was all just too much for her. They walked together, into another entry way, on the other side of the building. Ranko kept talking about how Ranma just had to be around somewhere, Ukyou just walked beside her, dwelling deep within her own thoughts. She was wondering to herself why Ranko looked the same as ever, well not counting the tattoo, while she looked so wrung out. Ranko never lost her positive attitude, even when they were fighting. No she never lost it especially when they were fighting. It was all Ukyou could do to keep moving forward at times. The very pressure from the walls seemed to suck the life out of her. They walked father and there was another staircase, a normal one, not ornate like the first. Off ot the side was a set of door, and a sign reading "Dinning hall". Ranko looked around, apparently trying to decide if they should go up the stairs, or into the other room. "well, Maybe we can find something edible while we search." Ukyou just looked at the fiery red head. 'Food, at a time like this. Oh well at least she is consistent'. They turned and entered a hallway leading to a room, dominated by tables, chairs, a piano and a large movie projector. Ranko jumped off to the side, to enter the cooking area, to see if there was anything to eat. Ukyou just looked around. Pictures were dark and smudged beyond all recognition. The chairs were dusty, the table cloths looked like mold was growing on them. In the center of the room was an table made around a central pillar. She saw a glint from one of the seats, and went to go investigate it. It was a notebook, well a section of one anyway. Has the name Madoka scrawled on the top, but she is unable to read anything on it. "well, that seems useless" from the kitchen there is a muffled "Whhhhth iiisthh" Ukyou sigh's realizing that the Ranma/Ranko food detector works even here, in the land of ghosts. Of course, since Ranko is technically a ghost, maybe that is not so unusual.

Under the table she is at, she see's another glimmer and bend over to pick up the flashlight that lays there. She turns it on and after some flickering, and sputter it comes on fully, and appears to light the area better than the yellowish semi-light that permeates the rooms here. She pans the flashlight around the room, getting a better view of the place. A head pops up in the window that presumably leads to the kitchen. She sighs when she see's its Ranko's with her mouth stuffed with some sort of bun. Ukyou however pales next, as she see's the shape of a man appear behind Ranko. Ranko, seeing her friends face turns behind her to look, but the man had faded away as soon as she started to turn. "hey now, that was not nice Ukyou."

Ukyou blinks a few times, to make sure he was gone. "I thought I saw something, forget about it." But seeing the man made her jumpy, and then a horrible thought came to her. She did not have the Camera. "Crap!, Ranko, do you have the camera?"

"uhmmm no... you had it"

Feeling suddenly defenseless, she wondered why it had taken her so long to realize this.

_A sudden awakening._

Normally when she wakes, there is not the jolt of being suddenly wide awake. But this morning, one moment she was realizing in fear that she could not find the camera, and the next, sitting bolt upright in the bed. Miku lay next to her, still sleeping. It was dark outside still, and in the hostel she was sleeping in, a muffled noise outside the room, and a light. Ukyou gets up quietly so as not to disturb Miku and slides open the door. To Ukyou, this is a much nicer hostel than the last one she lived in, though the rooms were spendy and only had one bed. She walked down the stairs, half expecting to see Akane again, screaming at her. But instead in the common room say Mio and Kei, deep in conversation. Ukyou stopped a moment and listened to them

"Look Mio-chan, you are not at fault. You did not kill your sister, Sae did. I already lost one of you, I don't want you to become our first three-timer, and lose you too"

"I know Occhan, I know rationally that is what happened. But I remember being there, I remember the ritual." Ukyou hears a soft sob.

"I remember her looking at me, begging me to kill her. And I remember me wrapping my hands around her throat. How can I think to blame anyone else than myself?"

"You just need to learn how. We are too close to a hot spot for you to keep dwelling on this. Sae killed Mayu. Period. Sae almost got you as well. Reika almost got you and me both. She is trying to get Ukyou now. We don't need to feed her anymore regrets or sadness to empower her more."

"yes Occhan, I will try" Comes Mio's depressed voice. Ukyou realizes that their conversation is basically done, and continues down the stairs, entering the common room. She see's Kei and Mio sitting near a table, on padded pillows. Ukyou comes over and sits with them. On the table was some scattered magazines, and the ball shaped vase that had held flowers earlier in the day, now empty. Even with the light of the two paper lamps in the room, everything had long shadows, and darkness permeated the room.

An uncomfortable silence descends on them, until finally Kei breaks it. "So what happened tonight?" Ukyou stops and thinks a bit, trying to put things into words.

"Well, I was in a different place, some sort of hotel and hospital built together. Ranko was there, locked in some place called the Asou museum room. It was weird, very different than any of the dreams before. It was like I was not in her world at all. Even Ranko said as much"

Kei looked at her with a blank expression, thinking. Ukyou noticed that Mio had not really raised her head much , since she had come down. Mio tended to hide her face a lot anyway, 'perhaps its because she is self conscious of her eyes' Ukyou thought to herself.

"Do you have any other details about this place? Location, or impressions that might be useful in find it?" asked Kei.

"No Not really, I found some pictures with the names Madoka, Misaki and Ruka. It does seem to be like the other dreams, but its just different. Ohh and I noticed that there was this yellowish glow to everything, instead of that bluish one that lite the mansion. I can give you more info in the morning when Miku is up, since then I don't have to repeat it again" responded Ukyou.

Mio's voice was soft "Are you positive that you don't remember anything to help find that place? Really really positive?"

Ukyou started to get a weird feeling in her gut. Something was off here.

Kei looked right at her. "yeah Anything will help, maybe you should go over everything with us now. We may be able to help more if we start now"

In the background a clock starts to chime, _Ding_

'a chiming clock? I don't remember that being here'

_Ding._

She looked around the room and noticed the shadows start to get longer. Kei leaned forward "yeah something, anything really. Tell us everything Ukyou"

_Ding._

Ukyou noticed that Mio was looking at her levelly. She was grinning slightly, and her eyes, the pupils were wide open, and very intense.

_Ding_

Eyes? Pupils? Mio's eyes were solid white, this is not right at all. "Wait what are you saying..." she trailed off as she saw Kei reach over towards the vase, and start to turn it around.

The clock stopped dinging and instead a loud scream was heard. Ukyou jumped to her feet. She looked down at Kei who had picked up the vase and turned it around fully. The other side of the vase was missing showing the inside of it, where there was a head. Akane's head to be exact, her eyes boring into Ukyou.

"I will find you both. I will bring you back to me, to us, and make you both pay. You cannot hide from me. I am coming for you, slut. You cannot escape Reika!" the head screamed at her. Ukyou watched as both Mio's and Kei's heads rolled forward falling to the floor. When she looked down at them, it was her head, and Ranma's and Ranko's gazing up at her. "You cannot escape us, Ukyou!"

Ukyou jumped as she woke up again. Still in the bed, with Miku, but this time waking her.

"What happened Ukyou?" asked a sleepy Miku. "Did something happen in your dreams?"

Ukyou just put her face into her hands and wept.

_Morning Again._

When Ukyou was positive that she was awake and this was not another dream, she met with everyone downstairs for breakfast. Once they left the hostel, and started to drive back to the hospital, she explained what had happened last night, and the dream that came later. Mio looked very uncomfortable when Ukyou talked about the "conversation" between Kei and her. "We did have that conversation last night, after you two went to bed." said Mio in a shaky voice. "We talked because I was not sure how to tell you about my own first time. Occhan and I had that very conversation. I did participate in a ritual that killed my sister. And I looked in to a entryway into hell, causing this" her hands went up covering her eyes. "This is all true, and they just threw it at you."

Ukyou put her hand on Mio's "When I listened last night, he said a Sae killed your sister. I cant believe you would have it in you to kill someone. I have met enough killers to know you are not one, Mio. You just have been through a lot, more than I think I would be able to handle"

"Well I hope you can handle it U-Chan. I really do hope that."

The rest of the drive to the hospital was in silence as everyone was lost in their own thoughts.

Ukyou spent the day by Ranma's side. Just holding his hand. At first one of the nurses thought she was his wife, and called security. After some explanations, and an id check, everything was smoothed over. The nurses were happy to see someone who really cared for him coming to him in his coma. One of them told her that this was the best medicine for him. He needed to want to come back, and she was positive that coma victims could hear and feel on some level, even in that state. Just someone talking to them, and touching them could not help but make things easier for them to come back. Ukyou hoped so. With all she was she wanted him back. Deep inside, she knew that if he would not come back, she would stay with him there. Not matter how bad things there got. Even if she lost her soul doing it, she would never let him go again. Miku and Kei left to go research the area. Something horrible in the past had to have happened here. Something that caused folks in this area to be drawn into more than one wold of spirits gone mad. Miku thought if they could find the origin they may be able to attack Reika on this side, while Ranko and Ukyou attack her on the other. Putting Reika to rest for good, that would take more than just banishing her to be impaled again. She has escaped from that twice that they knew of now. Rei and Mio stood watch over Ukyou, making sure that she was doing ok. Mio was pressed into making sure Ukyou ate, something Rei noticed before. Unless food was placed into her hands, she would not eat. Rei spent time with her computer, using the hospital wireless to also research. She did find that this area had a very high concentration of "spirited away" and stories about that had persisted for centuries here. She also found that this was the birthplace of Dr Kunihiko Asou, the creator of the camera, and one who seemed intimately involved with all of the events. Rei had long had a theory that the Camera itself was the cause of much of the issues with the 3, now 4 events that they knew of. He had apparently made several of these cameras, and the first one was kept in a memorial that was open to the public on his family estate. He was famous not only in this area, but among spiritual researchers, and amateur ghost hunters world wide, not far from the hospital they were at now. To the general public he was only known for his "spirit radio", and that was primarily because Both Harry Houdini and Nikolai Tesla tried to debunk the radio, and neither could. Tesla even went on to use what he theorized about the radio, to theorize about ether, and how it reacted to the world around them. Asou was cited by him as an inspiration for his Ether electrical system that was floating or wireless electricity. Rei wondered to herself if Tesla or his experiments ever had issues of the same kind, with spirits in America.

Ukyou kept wanting to sleep, but sleeping meant returning to those dreams. She was growing more and more tired the longer this went. Miku said that she had spend much of the last week of the dreams, before Rei ended it, sleeping all day. 4 days at one point she slept solid. Ukyou didn't really get that when she said it, as she was a martial artist and in prime condition. But now, after 2 weeks of this, she could start to understand it. It was similar to being up for a week solid. She was tired. It was late into the afternoon, when Mio returned with what they had gathered so far. What they found then, was Ukyou, sleeping with her head on Ranma's arm. None of them could tell if it was a restful one or not. They all hoped and prayed it was.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Authors notes**__: First I want to thank my editor, as she is keeping me from making this illegible. _

_The first two chapters will be reposted soon, with corrected English. (IE to make it readable) I will post t a disclaimer to the top of each so that folks do not have to read it again if they do not want too. _

_This chapter is done, the next is getting there. So yes this story at least is not dead and will be progressing for some time._

_Yes this is the same fanfic I did not touch for 4 years. I get that. I am touching it now so and it should be much easier to read as well. Hopefully you will like it. _

_Standard disclaimers. I don't own any of this. The characters will be OOC, I will try and keep them as close to how I would see them in the same circumstances. _

_If you thought Ranma fans were quick to dislike something OOC, talk to Fatal Frame players some time. They are (pardon the pun) scary._

**Ranma's POV. Part 1**

So far married life had been an epic fail. After all this time, Akane STILL did not really trust him. In some circles, they would not even be considered married as there were certain things that still needed to take place first. Not with them of course. He felt like he was some sort of male slave—being forced change HIS name, not hers; being forced to move THEM to a spot SHE wanted and being forced to work three jobs to support them while she was able to do what SHE wanted. He even had to give up on enough training to become a Sensei at the Dojo as he had to quit school. Akane was taking all of the classes for that, and made no bones about he would be her "assistant" not a teacher on his own.

In short, Ranma felt angry and resentful. Honor demanded that he stay with her but that did not make him any less angry. He was considering taking a fourth job, just to keep away from her indefinitely. Then his birthday came up.

He was busy working on the building they were getting up. It was a sunny day and he almost felt rested. 'Man, who knew it would be so restful sleeping on the couch?'. He woke up that morning in the wee dark hours. He had his first job to get to. As he shaved, he saw the calendar that was kept next to the mirror in the tiny bathroom they had. 'Yep today is the day. Twenty years old,' he sighed to himself. 'Twenty so far, for one dream that I can never have". He placed his shaving kit and toothbrush back into the bag that he was keeping them all in. Like the rest of the apartment, he wasn't allowed to use any space in the bathroom for his personal belongings. He kept his few belonging in a chest right by the front door. ''Well,' he thought to himself, 'if I am lucky, some of the guys will want to go out tonight so I could at least only work two of the jobs today. That might be a good self present.' He grabbed his gear and headed out to work.

It was a hot day but a great one. The sun was not oppressive; it just warmed the air and made Ranma feel good about today.

"Morning, Tendo. What kind of plans do you have tonight since it's your birthday?" Ito, one of his friends on the job, asked

"Just the usual, avoiding my wife. If I have to eat her cooking again, I will have to spend the week with her trying to recover," Ranma replied."

Ito laughed about this. Akane's cooking ability (or the lack there of) was legendary. Another co-worker had felt Ranma was exaggerating about her food, so asked to try a bite. He spent the next week in the hospital from blow fish poisoning from a plate of uncooked broccoli . After that, no one thought he was exaggerating at all.

He checked in with the supervisor as he always did in the morning.

"Morning Tendo. You'll be hauling girders to the fifth floor again today," the supervisor informed him

"No problem, boss"Ranma replied. He really enjoyed this particular job as it meant he could just toss three or four girders to the top of the top and race up to make sure he could catch them. He was trying to develop an addition to the family style, Anything Goes Climbing Monkey Style. He had already created and mastered another style from work, the Anything Goes Rivet Setting Amaguriken. He had often wondered why Genma never worked unless he could not avoid it since the world was full of wonderful possibilities in creating new forms.

'Oh well his loss,' Ranma thought to himself. 'At least these are all better forms than the C-c-c-c-c-c-c Fist.' He shuddered as even thinking about the name of the technique caused him to shake.

Deep within Ranma's mind, the shadow seed of a ghost resided—a cat who kept Ranma afraid and held on to a part of him. The Neko-ken spirit was more or less at constant war with the female ghost who also resided inside him. Both would help protect him, however, from what was to come.

The day flew by, as usual. He was approaching the end of this particular job today when he got a visitor. His tormentor, er, "wife," showed up to bring him lunch. After all it WAS his birthday. She should be "nice" and make him a special lunch. Special was the operative word. She knew what she wanted to make but, as usual, she found she could not find all of the ingredients specified in the recipe. The scorpions were fine. Those, in some circles, were a delicacy. Ipecac is not really a good replacement for simple syrup though. And replacing the sake with turpentine was perhaps a new low even for her. Yes is flamed nicely when lit, but it was capable of removing Ranma's intestines rather than just paint. Then, to top the dish off—literally—she was out of salt. So she used what she thought was a reasonable substitute (she thought this was baking powder), but ended up using chloroacetic acid (for those chemically minded it is CH3CO2H + Cl2 → ClCH2CO2H + HCl ). That, with the turpentine, made something very similar to a crystalline form of Aqua Regia. All in all, this lunch should have set off JDF's chemical weapons alarm system; however, like most of Akane's dishes, it seemed to not ever trip them. In truth, like Ranma was possessed by the cat and by the drowned girl spirit, Akane had her own curse—one of an ancient angry cook. This cook set out to conquer the world with his cooking. One of his dishes even started the collapse of the island-kingdom Atlantis. No one is quite sure where she got this curse from; but, if one were to look further into it, they would find Happosai's fingerprints all over it.

"Hi Dear," came a voice that Ranma was, frankly, dreading at this moment. Behind him a short, stocky woman with short blue/black hair had brought the worst fear for Ranma at preset: a picnic basket "I brought you a special lunch for your birthday."

At this, Ranma felt his heart sink. Not because she said the word "lunch" but because she added the word "Special" to it. He had only heard her refer to a food item as special once before. It was for Ryoga's birthday a year and a half ago. Ryoga had spent a week gone (he was actually in a ditch about three blocks from the Dojo) until Dr Tofu had found him. Another two weeks later he was let out of the clinic and found for a month that he was able to find his way from Point A to Point B, without getting lost. At the end of the month, however, he disappeared. Ranma had never seen him again

Now, come and sit with me and have lunch," intoned the kitchen destroyer. For a brief moment he has a small sliver of hope as maybe, just maybe, she would eat some herself. He sat and pulled out what looked like a moldy rice ball and offered it to her.

"Oh no, Ranma," she protested with a shake of her head. this is your birthday lunch. I could NEVER think of taking any from you."

Ranma sighed heavily. He had a bad feeling that he knew where this was going, that it was going to be much much worse than he thought.

He managed to make it through the rice balls. They had an okay consistency yet they tasted like something you would get from a waste plant. It was the main dish, something she called a better version of Okonomiyaki, that caused Ranma's danger sense to switch to Red Alert. Ranma knew Okonomiyaki. He had lived off of it for what seemed like years. This was something that was almost alive and decidedly unholy. A slight blue mist rose from the plate and just sniffing it caused him to hear the soft chimes of a Shinto funeral. Against not only his better judgment but also the judgment of the two spirits residing in him, he took a bite: and the world changed for him.

In a haze that anyone else would have said was a bad LSD trip, he sat looking around. The construction site was empty. Snow was lightly falling from the sky. He could still hear the chimes ringing. The sky was dark and everything had a blue cast to them. As he looked around the area, only three buildings were visible

"Well THAT's odd," he thought to himself

He could see the construction site itself, right where he was. In the distance was a house, standing alone. And much, much farther out, on the top of a hill overlooking the empty area, he could see a manor with spirit gates leading up to it. Ranma walked over to the house slowly. As he approached the outer grounds, he found he could not actually enter the grounds. Looking at this house there appeared a sort of "bubble" around it. If he looked though the bubble he could see that inside the grounds the light was normal and no snow fell. When he looked through the bubble to the view beyond he could see other houses; but, when he tried to see those houses without looking through the bubble he saw nothing. Hanging from the door of the house was a sign that said "The Historic Asou home and museum".

So he turned and started walking towards the other building, the manor in the distance.

There were hundreds of gates between the two buildings, one every few feet. As Ranma passed through the first gate a small rock fell off and hit him on the head, causing him to sigh. The next gate, a larger one, also fell—hitting him directly on the head. As he continued to pass through the gates, larger and larger parts of the gates would fall. No matter how hard he tried to dodge, he still was hit precisely in the same spot on the head. He saw blood starting to drip off of his face. The wounds caused by this cut deeper and deeper into his head. Walking through the last gate before entering the grounds of the manor, the entire gate collapsed—leaving him unconscious.

With horrified eyes, Ito watched the scene play out. He saw Ranma take a bite, saw his eyes roll back into his head, and saw him fall backwards.

"Ranma, quit faking it!" yelled an angry Akane. "I worked very hard on that!" Akane started to shake Ranma, shaking him before throwing him angrily back to the ground when she got no response. She looked around for a moment before spotting what was, to her, the perfect hammer.

Ito realized he needed to call the police, the hospital and some Sumo wrestlers as she reached for a jack hammer propped against a girder. "We have to stop her!" he yelled to his boss as Akane picked the hammer up and started in on Ranma's head. When the police finally arrived, the entire construction crew had been beaten to a pulp. Ranma's head was buried in the concrete with blood everywhere. Akane was nowhere to be found. Years of beating up the Hentai Horde had helped keep her hammer on target with one hand while knocking the construction workers all around the yard with the other.

No one knew where she fled to. Ranma, in his new name, had not listed any other contact addresses in his job. No matter how hard the local police looked, they could not find her

A few days later, Akane returned home. She was still angry and while she told everyone he was dead, she did not believe it for an instant herself. This was RANMA after all! No mere hammer would ever stop him for long. She expected that in a few days he would show up and properly apologize to her for his actions. After dinner the night she returned, she was more or less cornered by Nabiki.

"Okay, Akane," Nabiki asked, "what happened?"

"I don't want to talk about that jerk!" Akane exclaimed in a huff, anger flowing off her in heat waves.

"That 'jerk' is dead, if we listen to you," Nabiki pressed.

"Well I don't want to talk about it!" huffed Akane as she glared at the middle Tendo.

"Look, dear sister," she began, "you can try and dodge MY questions. However, you have other folks who will be a lot less kind to you than I will. If you want any protection at all, I need to know."

"NO!" screamed Akane loudly. "I am NOT talking about what he did to me!" Angry beyond measure, Akane stormed off to the Dojo to break things.

From the kitchen, Kasumi just looked at the scene and frowned.))

Gossip spread rapidly. Everyone noticed that Akane was back yet Ranma was not. Kuno tried to get information about this from Nabiki and got stonewalled. Dr. Tofu also got stonewalled when he questioned the middle Tendo regarding Ranma. Ryoga tried to get information from Akane and got malleted for his efforts. This silence ended, however, with the sound of a small "poing" at the back gate of the Dojo. Riding her stick, Cologne balanced there. In her hand she held the sign for the Tendo Dojo. Kasumi was the first one who noticed. She went to greet the Amazon elder, who looked at her coldly.

"Child, I am giving you one hour. Take what you have and leave. I do not come here for niceties today."

Kasumi bowed and, knowing that her home was not only going to be disrupted but, perhaps, gone altogether, she started gathering her things. Nabiki watched the exchange and, as Kasumi went to pack her things, she poked her head out to look at Cologne. The Elder looked at her.

"Do you know where he is? Truthfully?" Cologne asked.

Nabiki weighed her options and decided to tell the truth. "No," she admitted. "She won't talk to me about it."

"You have less than an hour," Cologne warned. "Leave now. Pray that I do not find out that you lied to me."

The two sisters left moving towards the only place they could think of, Nodoka's new home. They told Nodoka about what had happened and Ranma's mother rushed to the site to see where her son was. What she found was a hole were the house used to be and blood. Lots and lots of blood. Everywhere. Attached to a pillar, a skin flag flapped slowly in the wind. Nodoka could tell the flag was made out of a panda skin.

A few days later, body parts started showing up in Nerima. A few fingers here, a hand there, then larger body parts began to appear. Examinations showed that they had been wrapped in twine to make the other parts separate first. Further examinations showed that the victim was still alive when this happened. Fingerprints identified the fingers as being from Akane. It took DNA testing to determine that the rest of the body parts were hers as well.

One week after it started, on one of the two entry gates to Furinkan High School, looking at everyone with eyes that had the lids removed, was just the head of Akane Tendo.))

The torso was never found.

Ghosts come in many flavors and powers. Some were mere reflections, shadows of the past played out over and over again. Some were minor spirits, remembering parts of their life, and possibly realizing they are dead. There were those who held more power still, driven by a specific emotion, wandering our world, trying to grow more powerful by destroying life, or recreating themselves through the life energy of the living. Beyond them lay the most powerful of the spirit realm, true powers, who can create worlds unto themselves and draw the living into them. They are usually self-aware, and knowingly seek the most powerful of the living or those who have a connection to either their goal or themselves. They hold the power to recreate reality, within a bubble, where they alone control the entrance and exit. They have little desire to control more space, for they can expand and contract their realms at will. New victims can come in at any time, and be moved from one time to another regardless if when they actually entered. Usually they will take the place of their end, recreating that and using that place to draw the living into. There they feed, draining the life force, until all that remains is a lesser spirit who must follow the commands and needs of the ruler of the realm.

Of these spirits, there were five in total—four of which had pronounced goals within their realms. Four of them also had connections to one man who tried to bridge the spirit and living realms: Doctor Asou. There is an argument to be made that it was Doctor Asou alone who caused the creation of these greater ghosts; yet there was also one who existed on the other side of the world who had no connection to the events in Japan other than being just as powerful and just as evil.

All five sought the powers of the living so they could reach their goals.

One to release a spirit from bondage, one to complete an unfinished ritual, one sought only her own death—ungranted while alive. One who was new and needed to bring balance behind a public and private dance and the last, who kept her tormentors alive in an unliving state: a form of hell that they could never escape from.

Here, at this time, two of the great spirits sought the same prey, the death seeking mistress of dreams, and the lunar dancer. They would fight over one boy who held massive Chi, and their realms would infect one another. The other three would watch, so see how this could happen, and what they needed to do to protect them, or destroy another.

It was Reika, spirit of the dreaming, that found him first. She was not the one with the greatest power; her realm could only infect the dreams of others. In her realm, however, she could incorporate the realms of the other spirits, as shadows, to help her in her quest. Of all of them she had the least level of self-awareness. Her entire existence, and only thought consciously, was to yearn for sleep, to fill the void in herself. It was in her realm that Ranma first found himself, being stopped from crossing the river of souls by Reika to fulfill her needs.

Ranma realized that he possessed existence. This sounds like a minor thing, but in the spirit realms he currently walked that, in itself, was a victory, no matter how small of s victory it was. He floated on a river, standing with one foot apiece on two illuminated boats towards the far shore.

The far shore held many images of people all walking away from him. There was also a ghostly image of what he knew was to be his destination if he stepped on that shore. He could see a school surrounded by wilderness. He could see students of the school all armed with guns hunting a single girl at that school. He knew if he let the Tomo Nagashi take him to that shore, he would have accepted death. A large part of him wanted to go and give in.

He wanted to be free of his unrecoverable honor and everything else that made his life miserable. ''But Ranma never loses when it counts,' he thought to himself. Death would be giving up. A loss that he would not accept.

He looked behind him and he saw more of the boats coming out of the mouth of a sea cave as well as more people walking across the water to the other shore. He turned towards the cave and stepped into the water. As he swam to the cave, he felt he water was terribly cold: freezing in fact. He was startled to realize that he did not change forms. He entered the cave as a very cold and wet MALE Ranma

In Ranma's mind, two spirits watched. One was the spirit of the girl, who drown in cursed pools. The other was more of a demon than pure ghost. He was the collected power of thousands of cats killed during the Neko-ken training over the centuries.

This spirit knew what few others did: that the Neko-ken was a lie. There was no pure version; in fact, Ranma had come closer to beating it than anyone had. The Neko-ken was a trap designed to drive strong souls mad. Like any cat, this spirit enjoyed his stay in his plaything. He had a much longer time in our world than he had ever been before.

The spirit of the girl looked at Ranma as someone who, even in death, she would not mind being with. Ranma took her mind over when he changed making her more like him. Ranma drove away the depression that caused her to drown herself so long ago. She learned from him the style of fighting he employed and fed on his confidence. In return, she slowly had been making headway into teaching him how to react to women.

She was not able to teach him everything of course, Ranma would have needed a willing partner to overcome the problems he had with physical affection. Akane was anything BUT willing, even after they were married, so he was no farther along now than he had been two years before.

She was watching him make the choice between certain death and an uncertain life. The shore called her strongly; however, she hoped Ranma was not ready to step there. This cave and what was beyond it held a far more powerful energy than she had ever felt. She had never felt anything near as evil as that cave either. She wanted with all she had for Ranma to live,but she was terrified of what was in the cave.

'I wish I were Ranko right now, then at least I would be strong: stronger that whatever that is anyway' she murmured to herself.

The only person that could hear her was the Keno-ken ((Neko-ken)) itself. Both spirits possessed Ranma, and both strongly desired his continued existence. They decided for the moment to leave each other alone. They both felt they needed to actively protect Ranma for the fights to continue. Too much was at stake for all of them.

Ranma walked into the care. It was a cavern with a shrine inside of it. Ranma watched as a older woman seemed to, somehow, fight against a flying spirit. Every few moments the flying spirit would scream and the world would become black and white. As Ranma watched the flying spirit fell and four young girls gather to nail the spirit into the ground. The girls are all dressed in traditional handmaiden clothes.

The woman then walked outside to the river. Ranma had no desire to go there so he kept looking around.

One of the four girls looked up and saw that he was there.

"This is not your place or time yet. Depart!" yelled the girl.

Ranma noticed that she still had the hammer, and a long stake in her hand. There was a sudden rush of air and Ranma's view went to blackness. He still felt awake but a strange field interrupted his eyesight.

His eyes started to clear and he could see he was in a more or less normal room sitting on a bed. The curtains were drawn shut with what sounded like rain hitting the window. On his right was a a desk with piles of papers on it. There were books on a shelf beyond the desk. To his left was a bookshelf with some old electronics on the shelves. Ranma's eyes were drawn to what appeared to be a radio of some type, some large crystals and an old broken camera that were in the bookcase. Ranma would have just liked to stay here as what this room held just screamed "Normal Life" to him. On the desk was a few papers with the name "Yuu Asou" written across the top of them.

Ranma leaned back on the bed, just resting and taking in the dull greyness of this room. Calmness flowed through him and he could almost sleep but something on the edges of his mind made his restless. Eventually the boredom set in and he got up to leave the room.

*Crack* Ranma heard a clanging sound outside of the room as he opened the door. It seemed below him.

Looking past the door he saw a normal looking hallway with a door on the left. At the end of the hallway there appeared to be a bannister over another room. He went forward and looked down into what appeared to be a normal living room below. The light here was also a rainy sort of gray, with a reddish-colored light coming from under the door on his left.

'I will check that room out later,' Ranma thought to himself, 'but right now I want to know what that noise was.'

As Ranma headed down stairs, he saw the kitchen tucked away under the banister. A couch, TV and *shudder* some kind of scratching post and litter box were also in the room. There was a telephone on a small table next to the stairs and under the stairs was a small open area for storage.

Ranma could smell food but could not see anything laid out anywhere. Ranma went into the kitchen to see what was in the fridge. Everything in the kitchen was immaculate. 'Kasumi would feel at home here I think,' Ranma mused. He did not know that he could not be farther from the mark on that.

When Ranma opened the fridge he was almost ill. While the fridge looked like it was cleaned every day the inside of this fridge was warm and covered in slime and mold. The gray light started playing tricks on him so that it seemed like some of the food was moving. He quickly shut the door. 'I take that back. This looks like Akane's perfect fridge, not Kasumi's,' Ranma thinks as he tried to keep from throwing up. Ranma slowly opens a cupboard hoping that not everything here was like the fridge. Unfortunately for Ranma, he finds the same thing there as well. Nice and clean on the outside but filled with rotting food and sludge on the inside. Other than Akane's cooking he had never seen anything like what he was seeing in this kitchen. He quickly walked out of the kitchen and noticed that a normal looking door was off to his right. "That's odd, I don't remember that door being there before. I must have been a lot more hungry than I thought,' Ranma thought as he examined the door. This was a normal looking door with a slight blue tint to it.

As Ranma opens the door he sees a hallway leading to his right and an alcove with an outside door in front of him. Shoes are properly lined up just as they should with the indoor shoes neatly laid out in rows.

*CLANG*

Off to Ranma's right he again hears a crash of something down at the end of the hallway. He walks down, passing an open doorway that leads to a bathroom. Farther down the hall on the left is an open room more traditional in style with an altar in it.

At the end of the hall Ranma walks up to the door and sees that this door is odd. While the rest of the doors are normal in color this one is painted a dark glossy red. He opens the door and a reddish light pours out from inside. He can see bottles of chemicals on shelves, a sink and some hanging pictures.

'Nabiki had a room like this, she called it a dark room. I always thought she should have called it a red room' Ranma joked to himself.

Ranma pokes around trying to find out what was making the noise. He found more or less nothing. All that was here was undeveloped pictures, photo chemicals, and another camera that looked almost identical to the one upstairs.

'That must be a popular style, I wonder if Nabiki has one?' Ranma thinks as he examines the camera.

*CRACK*

Again the noise sounds again this time from back the way he came. He moves quickly down the hall, back to the living room area he was in before. Nothing is visibly out of place. He looks around the room to see if there is anything different than he saw before. The living room appears to be just as he left it.

*tick tick tick*

A sound is just barely heard by Ranma. He follows the sound as he turns his head and notices that right next to the phone was a tall grandfather clock that had not been there before.

"How in the hell could I have missed THAT?" Ranma said aloud.

He moved closer and started to examine the clock. It was tall with an old European design. There was a very ornate motif of doll heads carved into the wood. He looked inside and he saw that on the inside where the gears were dirt, leaves and oil was everywhere.

*CLANK* sounded again and he saw what was making the noise. As the long arm swayed back and forth it ran into a camera. The camera looked just like the others that he seen in the house.

.

He picked up the camera and took it out laying it on the ground next to the clock.

"What is up with these cameras, its almost like they are breeding." said Ranma.

He was examining the camera when a new sound was heard. It was a very squeaky noise that sounded like an rusty door hinge, coming from the upstairs.

Ranma was starting to feel like he was playing tag with noises. Back up the stairs he went. As he got to the top of the landing he saw another new object had appeared. There was another door, this one surrounded by a red glow. He approached the new door and tried to open it. It was jammed shut hard enough that even with force it would not budge.

Ranma heard the creaking sound again and thought it was coming from the room he saw before. As he went into the other room he saw he saw that it was a girl's room. Bright purses hung from the walls and there were odd girly knickknacks on a bookshelf in the back. The wallpaper had a bright, floral pattern. In the far end of the room, he noticed a desk, and a journal laying on, face down. On the journal was printed very neatly "Miku Hinasaki". While Ranma felt guilty about reading a girl's journal he also needed to know where he was and what was going on with the strange house.

Ranma flipped through the pages to find that all of the pages were empty except for a single page stating that Miku missed her brother. The entry also mentioned that something very strange had happened when he disappeared but it did not go into many details.

Ranma got up and looked around the room again trying to see if anything else suddenly appeared. Once he was satisfied that everything was where it was when he walked in, he left the room. He walked back to the banister and looked over the edge.

%Click%

A sound very much like a camera's shutter was heard behind him. Ranma had, over the years, learned to listen for that sound since Nabiki loved to take pictures.

%Click%

It was coming from the other side of the door he could not open before. The door seemed to change slightly, as it now had a blue glow rather than a red one. Ranma tried to open the door. He was expecting a lot of struggle to get inside, so pushed full force and fell with his face cracking hard onto a small table inside the room. He quickly scanned the room. It had a bed, bookshelves and magazines in it. To his left was a closet and a desk with a normal looking camera on it.

%Click%

The camera on the desk was making that sound. He pulled himself up from the table and walked over to the camera to pick it up. As Ranma picked up the camera the world, and even he, seemed to shift just a bit to the right. It was like he was on a train that suddenly lurched to the left and then righted itself. It was a feeling he had never felt before.

The two spirits in Ranma felt the shift as well. It was the start of a closed loop in time. Somehow he could suddenly return to this exact spot in time and space. The spirit of the girl felt that even if he died (especially if he died) he would end up right back here picking the camera up for the first time.

The Neko-ken just smiled thinking that at least he would get to keep his toy for longer this way. In his cat-like mind the concept of time was not really well defined anyway so returning to this Safe Point was a good thing to him.

Ranma decided that the bed was looking really good right now and sat down on it. This house was weird even by his standards. Ranma sat on the bed and an overpowering drowsiness seeped through him He just plopped down backwards with his feet over the edge, falling almost instantly to sleep. He was about to learn where he was even if he would not understand it.


	4. Chapter 4

_Authors note. _

_First note to self. Load the corrected chapter next time. Not the Un-corrected one._

_Real note :_

_I have been asked by some of the Fatal frame players what my justification for using Reika and Sakuya since by cannon they were "defeated". After looking over the time lines there are a few things that need to be remembered about the FF games. In fatal frame 1, Himuro mansion was destroyed by , and of the games this is the only one that its positive was ended. However, due to the time skipping, we don't know when time wise that actually took place. _

_The lost village is under water. Some folks feel that means the lost village is no longer an issue, even though there is a gate there. I rational for the lost villages continued existence is that in Shinto, specifically __Ryukyuan beliefs, underwater gates and cities are common. They talk of among other things a civilization of evil underwater reptilians. People who get trapped in this city, come to it from gates on land, and have almost no chance of returning. If I follow that traditional approach, then the lost village not only is still around (as the gate is still present, and without continued appeasement WILL erupt again) but if anything its more dangerous now, since even if you can defeat its controller, you can't get away anyway._

_The Manor of Sleep. Even the in game characters (Kei specifically) were not convinced that the manor is really gone. There were many maidens that were trapped there, and while Reika had a specific reason to wake, any of the rest could wake more or less any time. Reika also specifically while bound could escape again too. _

_Rougetsu_ _island, while there was a specific controller at that time, this was not the first time things went horribly wrong with that island and the illness. It could and will happen again, since the root cause was not dealt with just the current controller._

_The last one is not a fatal frame game, but a different one altogether. And that one has the same issues. In each installment of the game, only the symptoms are dealt with, not the cause. _

_So that is my justification for FF being more or less in cannon. FF1 is taken down in a future point, even though subjectively Miku did it in her past. The rest, all have good arguments for still being around. Not perfect but as good as anything else I have heard. Ranma is not in cannon really, though I am trying to keep most things close to cannon. This is just not a comedy, so the slapstick of Ranma will not happen._

Ranko's view scene one

Pain.

It all started with massive amounts of pain. In truth, it started with Ranma's zigging when he should have zagged, but that led to a large amount of pain as the first tattoo was attempted to be burned into his flesh. She had touched him, grabbing his hair as he tried getting around her. The pain was all invasive.

The spirit of the girl felt the pain just as much as Ranma did. The Neko-ken felt it as well but pushed it all on one of the souls of the cats and did not deal with it as a whole anymore.

The spirit of the girl needed to stop the implant of the tattoo if she wanted Ranma to survive. She just was not quite sure how. She could see the spirit of the blue woman enter Ranma's soul, like a long snake working its way towards him. It was moving to the center of his being and while the draining snake moved she got an idea how to stop it. The spirit of the ghost reached out and grabbed the snake behind the head and tried to do to it what it was doing to Ranma. She tried to consume it utterly. As she took the energy out of the attack the blue woman looked down at her hand that still lay on Ranma's shoulder.

The spirit of the girl watched as Ranma turned and ran off again, dodging the ghosts of the three little girls with the spikes and hammers. As it had been in the past, he jumped over the head of Reika as she tried to once more grab hold of him. Off in the distance, down the hall, Ranma saw the blue glowing door. Soon he could escape from this blue mansion nuthouse to the apartment nuthouse. The spirit of the girl, however watched as ahead of them two spirits were forming to try and stop their escape.

'It's not an issue for him to make it' she starts to think to herself as they just get past the two newly formed ghosts. She examines them in the background and notices that they have one thing in common. It's the….

*Guuuurk!* Ranma starts coughing as a rope suddenly loops over Ranma's head, settles around his neck, and is jerked tight by one of the ghosts.

One ghost is a woman dressed in a shrine maiden outfit with ropes around her hands, legs and neck. The other is a man, completely wrapped in rope, with only a single arm free. They both spend time wrapping Ranma in the ropes, holding him fast. Reika moves up to him again. She uses both arms on him to be sure that there is no issue. Twin snakes enter his being looking for the heart of his Chi. Now that they know what to expect the spirit of the girl grabs the heads of both snakes, holding them fast.

Reika looks at this again. She is still very confused about why this is not working on Ranma. Reika pulls the snakes out using as much force as she can. This surprises the girl, who is partially pulled out of Ranma when this happens. Comprehension grows on Reika's face as she finally understands why her markings are not burning into Ranma. This distraction was all Ranma needed to finally break from the ropes.

Ranma quickly starts throwing the ropes off as Reika again send the snakes into his soul. This time they had a new target and the spirit of the girl set herself to catch them again. As she reached out to grab them once more, the snakes started wrapping themselves around her arms and torso to pull her out of Ranma. The girl panics realizing that Reika had made her the target and was soon going to pull her out of him. She reacts with the only action she can think of. She pulls hard on Ranma, seeking to take just enough of him to force the curse to change her. She thinks that maybe if she can transform, the snakes will not have a hold over her while they can get to the door.

Ranma reaches the doorway with the girl and the snakes still in him. The girl watches as he staggers in pain, bending over while running and then barrels through the blue door.

'Wait, he went through?' she thinks. She looks down. The snakes are dissipating and pain flashes through her as a tattoo forms on her shoulder. She stands there as the various ghosts turn to leave with only Reika staying behind looking at her.

"Oh crap!" The girl looks around rapidly. She can feel the spread of that small portion of Ranma she was able to keep in her hand as it was absorbed into her. The girl's form shifted, growing more and more familiar to her, until the fragment of his soul mixed enough with the girl's to solidify into a separate being.

Reika stared at the new ghost dispassionately. This was a spirit not under her control but it was also not enough of a threat to act against it at this time. She had better things to hunt.

The girl who was once and is again Ranko moved towards Reika.

"What do you WANT from us?" she yells at the retreating blue woman.

An echoing voice sounds in Ranko's mind.

"_I just wish to sleep…. Forever_"

Scene 2

Ranko grumbled as she moved. "So this is it huh? All that time spent helping that idiot and now I am trapped here."

Ranko was not happy about this. She knew at one time she was Ranma. She also knew that she was the girl who drowned. And, deep down inside, she knew that this was it. No more transformations. No more living within Ranma. And probably no more seeing him even IF he survived and escaped from here. She didn't have a body. Actually she had never HAD a body since this was all borrowed from Ranma to begin with. "Even if I DO beat the witch, what could I go back too? I am still a ghost either way" she sighed.

She was going to really miss a lot of things and a mild depression started to expand in her. . She would miss ice cream and Okonomiyaki. She was finding more and more things that she would miss from the world of the living.

Most of the ghosts left her alone; after all, she was like they were so they had no reason to attack her. So far she had not met anyone who she could consider worth fighting.

Realizing that she is falling into depression and that she is having a hard time adjusting to being "Ranko" fully in this world, she decides to try and calm down,

" Deep breaths," Ranko breathes. "Calm. Serene. I am calm and serene."

For several minutes she tries to force herself to meditate. Her biggest hurdle on this attempt is the fact that she is who she is. Ranma had issues meditating, he was too wild. Ranko was little different in that regard. Meditation meant not hitting something and not hitting things was no way for her to calm down. It just made her twitchier.

"Well, that didn't work. "she sighed.

Ranko is at present sitting in a stairwell that is in some building she has never seen before. The stairwell runs down into a corner library and up to a landing. There is soft biwa music being played gently through the area that appears to come from another room. She is depressed but she needs to get up and move to walk it off. She gets up and walks downstairs to start searching from scratch through here.

The room beyond the library is covered in odds and ends. There is a samurai armor stand, many boxes, and a huge grandfather clock against one wall. There is also a privacy wall and more stairs leading back to the landing. A fire pit is in this room and two doors, one to the right and one farther down also on the right. Ranko looks at the doors and decides to open the door on her right as it is closer. Beyond that is a small covered walkway that leads into an open air court yard and more entrances back into the house. It is as silent as death itself in this area.

"So far this place is a snooze fest," she says aloud. There is a tree in the courtyard and she walk towards it. As she gets closer, she looks around for a moment. Looking back at the house, she sees that is has two floors and that it's built in a square around the courtyard. When she turns back to the tree, Ranko sees that there is a woman with a noose around her neck hanging from the tree.

"Huh? Oh great. That has GOT to be another ghost," Ranko said with exasperation.

The hanged woman spins around. As she lines up with Ranko, she opens her eyes and looks directly at Ranko. Flying towards Ranko with the noose stretched out behind her, the hanged woman stretches out her hands to grab onto Ranko.

"Now this is a dance I know." Ranko smiled at the flying ghost, running to the side and causing the woman to miss in her attack on her. She runs partially up the tree and flips herself backwards. Ranko has already discovered that her being a ghost as well makes the other ghosts susceptible to her attacks.

*KerPowie!* Ranko double axe handles the back of the ghost as she leaps over the top of the flying women. Her hands tingle and grow a little cold but she ignores it. The woman is sent plummeting down to earth and is partially buried face first in the ground below. As the ghost faded from view, a small stone with an odd symbol on it falls from her pocket. Ranko moves over and picks it up. It's a hexagonal piece of ebony with silver markings on it. She pockets the stone.

'I bet that there is something around here that stone is needed for. These silly rules everywhere.' Ranko thinks to herself. "KAMI-SAMA! I HATE this place!" she yells aloud. She walks around the area, trying all of the doors. They all appear to be painted on rather than real doors. The only exit seems to be the room she came from. She opens that door and glanced inside.

Stupid spirit tricks! Damn it!" Ranko grumbles. On the other side of the door, the one she had just stepped through a few minutes before, was the entry way she first entered through. She looks behind her and she's standing in a hallway with ropes hanging from the ceiling. There were dozens of ropes hanging from the ceiling.

"I swear if I find the main one here I am kicking its ass period" Ranko pops her knuckles and gets a manic smile on her face. She walks into the entry way. There is a hole in the floor and a removable wall partially surrounding it. There is a glowing blue lantern on a small table to her left.

She has seen these tables before but she has really has not taken the time to examine one. Since she has this stone she decided to go see if that stone had anything to do with it. Ranko's luck being Ranko's luck it had nothing to do with the stone as far as she could tell. She carefully pokes it from every side some but eventually decides that sometimes a lantern is just a lantern. She turns to walk away from it and suddenly felt the entire world shift to the left.

'What? This again? First that camera that Ranma had, now this lantern.'))

When she recovers from her little shifting she looks around the room again. As she looks in the room she hears a wooden-sounding clatter and sees a mask fall from a wall. She walks around the back of the room to get a better look at the mask. It is a wooden mask in the inside but the front side seems to shift and shimmer in the limited light of this room. It fell from an old looking post that was made to hang masks on.

"Hey!" Ranko yells out to the ether, "Can you be any MORE obvious please?" as she places the mask back on the hook.

A small click was heard and a hidden door appears in the wall.

"Oh My" said Ranko in her best 'sarcastic Kasumi' imitation. "Whatever could this mean", she continued.

Ranko turns her head up and glares at the ceiling. It was not like she knew where the big baddy was, just that was as convenient as anywhere else to look. She then steps inside the hidden door to what lay beyond it. There was a short hallway here and an opening into another room. As she walks down the hall, sees someone enter the hall from the walls. This was what looked like a priest, with a Oni mask on, and holding a sword. Ranko looks at him. He looks at Ranko. Ranko blinks. He pulls back and swings at Ranko with the sword. Even though he seems to move slow, that sword was FAST. Really fast. She dodges it but it was a close one.

"You got speed, huh? Try this!" She jumps around his latest swing, her hands moving fast. Much faster then she remembers ever doing it before. So fast in fact that a rumbling series of booms was heard as her Chestnut Fist was breaking the sound barrier when she hit this man over and over again. The ghost of the man just sort of dissolves under the assault.

"See" *gasp* "what" *wheeze* "real" *gasp* "speed" *wheeze* "is?". Ranko was of all things, out of breath. She had done that technique hundreds of times and she had never been out of breath before. Not once. 'I never broke the sound barrier before either,' Ranko thought to herself as she tried in vain to regain her breath. She felt off. Wrong, somehow. It was like part of her overall energy was being drained just by striking that ghost.

Ranko continued to stagger down the hall and looked into the next room. This is a square room, with an entrance into yet another room behind a half-sized wooden door. It's primarily dominated by a huge cage, with some nice living items, obviously made for a girl, and a window to look out on that courtyard. The half-sized doorway into the caged room was locked but as she moved around to the half-sized wooden door beyond it turned out to open easy.

"So I guess this is the way to go" she again said aloud. Ranko really hoped that on some level she could irritate the main ghost like she was feeling irritated by the wandering spirits. As she moved through the door and stood up she again felt out of breath. The coldness that seeped into her before just grew to higher levels as she entered here.

In the center of this room was a huge wheel. There were five winches with ropes around the table. Dried and dark blood was everywhere and formed a faint body shape where the wood was exposed and not covered.

"That looks like a painful way to go," She said. Ranko examines the table and could see just what it was used for. A rope at each arm and leg. A rope for the neck. She could almost see the bodies lying on there and being pulled apart. A deeply cold shiver ran through her looking at this device and she wondered how many people had died on it. One? A hundred? A thousand maybe. She shivered again, thinking about the way folks would have died on this wheel.

It was her dwelling on the sight of this instrument that made her completely fail to notice that the greatest feeling of cold came from behind her.

The ringing in her ears from being so wiped out from the fight with the man caused her to not hear the sliding sound of fabric on fabric.

She did, however, notice it when ropes suddenly grabbed her around the neck, around her wrists and around her feet. She tried to scream, only to have the rope wrap itself around her head until her screams were muffled.

All she could feel was bone chilling cold and the burn of the ropes. If she had not fought the man, she may have been able to escape. If she was not so tired already, she may have heard her coming. None of that was important now. What was important was that the ropes were picking her up and gently placing her on the table.

What was important now was the pressure being applied as the roped started pulling.

What was important now was the feeling of her joints being dislocated and her body starting to split apart.

The last thing her detached head thought of was two words.

**Game Over.**

**Ranko's view again: Game over?**

'What? This again? First that camera that Ranma had, now this lantern.'

When she recovers from her little shifting she looks around the room again. As she looks in the room she hears a wooden-sounding clatter and sees a mask fall from a wall. She walks around the back of the room to get a better look at the mask. It is a wooden mask in the inside but the front side seems to shift and shimmer in the limited light of this room. It fell from an old looking post that was made to hang masks on.

She sort of remembers a bad thing happening when she walked through the door. A half formed memory of a dream.

"Hey!" Ranko yells out to the ether, "Can you be any MORE obvious please?" as she places the mask back on the hook.

A small click was heard and a hidden door appeared in the wall.

"Oh My" said Ranko in her best 'sarcastic Kasumi' imitation. "Whatever could this mean", she continued.

She stops a moment and has this strong feeling of Deja vue again like she has done this before, something bad is going to happen soon. She wished she could remember what it was. The memory just would not form.

Ranko turns her head up and glares at the ceiling. It was not like she knew where the big baddy was, just that was as convenient as anywhere else to look. She then steps inside the hidden door to what lay beyond it. There was a short hallway here and an opening into another room. As she walks down the hall, sees someone enter the hall from the walls. This was what looked like a priest, with a Oni mask on, and holding a sword. Ranko looks at him. He looks at Ranko. Ranko blinks. He pulls back and swings at Ranko with the sword. Even though he seems to move slow, that sword was FAST. Really fast. She dodges it but it was a close one.

He pulled back and swung at Ranko with the sword. Even though he seemed to move slow, that sword was FAST. Really fast. She dodged it but it was a close one.

"You got speed, huh? Try this!" She jumps around his latest swing, her hands moving fast. Much faster then she remembers ever doing it before. So fast in fact that a rumbling series of booms was heard as her Chestnut Fist was breaking the sound barrier when she hit this man over and over again. The ghost of the man just sort of dissolves under the assault.

"See" *gasp* "what" *wheeze* Ranko stopped talking. She knew that she had said this before. Now it was not just the memory that was slipping from her, but the mind numbing cold from fighting him.

Ranko was of all things, out of breath. She had done that technique hundreds of times and she had never been out of breath before. Not once. She felt off. Wrong somehow. It was like part of her overall energy was being drained just by striking that ghost. And she was so cold. Like just a small part away from true death.

Ranko continued to stagger down the hall and looked into the next room. This is a square room, with an entrance into yet another room behind a half sized wooden door. It was primarily dominated by a huge cage, with some nice living items, obviously made for a girl, and a window to look out on that courtyard. The half sized doorway into the caged room was locked but as she moved around to the half sized wooden door beyond it turned out to open easy.

"So I guess this is the way to go" she again said aloud. She felt cold, like ice was growing around her. A part of her was so cold inside that she just wanted to sit and rest.

In the center of this room was a huge wheel. There were 5 winches with ropes around the table. Dried and dark blood was everywhere and formed a faint body shape where the wood was exposed and not covered.

"That is a painful way to go." She said. She realized that somewhere in her past she had been on something like that. Ranko examine the table and could see just what it was used for. A rope at each arm and leg. A rope for the neck. She could almost see the bodies lying on here and being pulled apart. A deeply cold shiver ran through her looking at this device and she wondered how many people had died on it. She wondered why it looked familiar.

It was her dwelling on the sight of this instrument that made her completely fail to notice that the greatest feeling of cold came from behind her.

The ringing in her ears from being so wiped out from the fight with the man caused her not to hear the sliding sound of fabric on fabric.

She did however notice it completely as ropes suddenly grabbed her, around the neck, around her wrists and around her feet. She tried to scream only to have the rope wrap itself farther and rather around her head until her screams were muffled.

All she could feel was bone chilling cold and the burn of the ropes. If she had not fought the man she may have been able to escape. If she was not so tired already she may have heard her coming. None of that was important now. What was important was that the ropes were picking her up and gently placing her on the table.

What was important now was the pressure being applied as the roped started pulling.

What was important now was the feeling of her joints being dislocated and her body starting to split apart.

The last thing her detached head thought of was two words.

**Game Over.**

'What? This again? First that camera that Ranma had, now this lantern.'))

When she recovers from her little shifting she looks around the room again. As she looks in the room she hears a wooden-sounding clatter and sees a mask fall from a wall. She walks around the back of the room to get a better look at the mask. It is a wooden mask in the inside but the front side seems to shift and shimmer in the limited light of this room. It fell from an old looking post that was made to hang masks on...

…. The last thing her detached head thought of was two words.

**Game Over.**

'What? This again? First that camera that Ranma had, now this lantern.'

…. The last thing her detached head thought of was two words.

**Game Over.**

**Game Over….**

**Game Over….**

**Game Over….**

'Not this again. Not this terrible dream.' Ranko recovered from her shifting and sank to the floor. A hundred times or more she had repeated this awful ending. Every time she did it she got back clearer and clearer memories of the past. She always walked down that path way. She always was attacked by the ceremony master. And Kyrie always caught her.

Over and over again. She felt keenly the ropes wrapped around her throat. Even when she knew Kyrie was behind her, she could not get past her to be able to fight her.

'Okay, this ain't working. I need to find a way to beat her,' she thinks to herself. 'It may be time to try going back and see what I can find in the other direction.' So she climbs slowly to her feet and moves towards the door again, leaving the mask where it lay. As she starts to open the door she sees, out of the corner of her eye a flashing object near the edge of the hole in the floor. "Well, it's not like I will get anymore dead than I already am" Ranko says very softly to herself. She staggers a bit as she walks to the blinking object. Near to the edge of the hole is a small bottle filled with water. She picks the bottle up.

"Well what the hell." Ranko pops the top and drinks the bottle down. A warm feeling flows through her, driving the cold and the despair from her. "Wow! It's like Kasumi's cooking bottled as a glass of water." The house shakes, almost like it was annoyed that she was feeling better. Ranko jumped jumps around as she tries to maintain her balance. She stands and balances on a sliver of wood that juts out over the hole.

"Hah! Try and make me fall. What a joke…" Ranko smirks as the house decides to wipe the smirk off of her face. The entire room, floor, ceiling, doors, everything, fell into the darkness below. Ranko jumps from piece to piece trying to get back up to the open doorway but a large chunk of stone fell and lands on her. In a pile of wood and dust, she lands in another room. In the rubble she could see the remains of an old time movie projector, pointed at a wall that would have doubled as a screen. There was only one door in this room.

"Well, that damn blue woman doesn't want me wandering in the wrong direction I guess." Ranko opens the door, leading to a short hallway with a set of double doors on the right. The hallway continues to the left farther down.

As Ranko enters the hallway, she notices the double door move slightly and it closes. She turns and examines the door. It's a door. It is not a grue. It exudes "Doorness" for lack of a better concept. In a world of weirdness, this was comfortably a door. Ranko thought about this door and realized that she was getting slightly delusional thinking about the door like this. If she continued she would likely be eaten by a grue. 'Granted it is a nice door,' she thought. The door on the other hinge did not think anything at all.

She opens the door and saw inside that there was a room. Along all the edges were shelves filled with dolls. At the front of the room stood two human-sized dolls.

One of the dolls starts moving towards Ranko, arms reaching out.

"Dolls? You have got to be kidding me. I am just not that kind of girl" she says as she prepares to fight with the doll.

_Authors note_

_I would say I am sorry for the ending of the last chapter but deep down inside I am not. Ever since I started this, I have wanted to have a Save point/major character death scene. And there we are._

_Also this was originally supposed to be 2 chapters, but out of respect for my editor, and to make this more of a decent length to add I decided to have each POV chapter be a single chapter rather 2 or more of any given character._

_Ukyou is the main character, so be aware rules for her may not be the same as rules for the others._


End file.
